The feeling against the Pittsburgh association that owns the lake and dam that caused the calamity grows more intense the more the truth about the dam becomes known. The disclosure of the fact that the dam was simply a heap of dirt with loose stone facings, instead of a structure of solid masonry, and that the waste gates had been closed up by the association, which was printed in a Pittsburgh paper the other morning, made a sensation here, and threatens to bring the matter to a head. Criminal prosecution is freely talked of, but it is thought that it will be difficult to sustain a case, even in courts as prejudiced as those in Cambria county will be against the dam owners. The men are rich and responsible, however, and the liability of civil action is generally believed to be complete. If they should be held liable in civil suits for damages, it is probable that many, if not all of them, will be financially ruined. There is an abundance of evidence that the owners were frequently warned by old residents in the neighborhood of the dam that it was becoming weaker and getting into a more dangerous condition all the time.
One fact alone, as to the dam, ought to convict the dam owners of negligence. The stone face that went up each side of the dam was not continued across the top. In order to maintain a wagon road there the top of the dirt heap had merely been leveled off and left in its natural condition. It was a moral certainty that if the water even rose so high as to go over the top of the dam it would wash it out. With the water washing over the dirt top of the dam, the rock facing would amount to no more, as a source of strength, than a sheathing of cardboard. To have covered the top of the dam with a substantial course of stone capping, arched, or in some other way arranged to offer as little resistance as possible to the passage of the water, would have spoiled the wagon road, but it might have saved the dam.
Better opinion will no doubt prevail, and unless something new transpires later another scene of devastation will be averted.
En passant, to show the power of the voluminous flood, these incidents of the awful day are related:
The morning of June 6 the wreck of an express train was unearthed. The baggage of Miss Annie Chism, of Nashville, Tenn., was found. She was a missionary on her way to Brazil for the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Church.
Among her effects was a Bible, and in it was a message to be filed at Altoona and addressed to the Methodist concern at No. 20 East Tenth street, New York, announcing that she was on the train. Her watch, some money and a Greek Testament were also found. It is evident that many lives were lost on this train, more than at first supposed.
The whole train affair is still a mystery. At least the passengers have not so far been found and located. The body of a nicely-dressed lady was found yesterday which was so decomposed as to be unrecognizable. The effects of Miss Chism were sent to Altoona.
There was a small riot at the labor camp one morning on account of a lack of food and of utensils for cooking. Mr. Flinn, who is at the head of the labor bureau, told the men it was impossible to get things down from the railroad, but that this would be remedied as soon as possible.
He also said that they did not want men who expected to live on the fat of the land, and that this was principally a work of charity, even though the men were paid for their work.
